Moody Business: New programs, goals

Grad offerings expand, efforts turn toward community engagement

Dr. Joby John, dean of the University of Louisiana at Lafayette's B.I. Moody College of Business, spoke recently about the impact of the oil and gas industries in the region at the Gulf Coast Prospect & Shale Expo in the Cajundome.

Dr. Joby John, dean of the B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, recently discussed his outlook for the school and its efforts and activities this academic year through a series of questions posed by Business Editor Ken Stickney. Here's what he had to say.

Q: What's the outlook for the business school this year? What kind of year do you expect to have?

A: As always, we are excited to begin a new year at your B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration. We continue to make huge strides. Our students excel at national competitions. Our faculty continue to produce quality research. We have a powerful internship-for-credit program and study abroad options for all our majors. A number of our classes conduct community projects as part of their coursework. We are steadily progressing toward our vision of becoming the best-in-class in the Gulf Coast Region.

Q: How is overall enrollment in the school? Has it kept pace with previous years and has it met your expectations? Is there a size for enrollment that is the "right" size?

A: Our enrollment is now holding steady at a bit below 2,500. We are somewhat below our high of almost 3,000 students from a few years ago. Roughly speaking, the optimum capacity for our faculty size is about 2,500, including graduate and undergraduate programs. For a university of our size, I believe 3,000 students is about right; however, we would need a few more faculty to ensure we have adequate faculty-student ratios to meet our accreditation requirements.

Q: You have a new graduate program, the master's in accounting, in the launch stage. How is enrollment for that, and how do you expect it to grow and develop?

A: We are delighted to have this new MS in Accounting program approved by the Board of Regents to begin in fall 2014. Those individuals in our region wishing to sit for the CPA exam can take the MS Accounting degree option and get their required 150 hours to sit for the exam. We know that we have a sizable number of our accounting graduates get their master's elsewhere to sit for the CPA exam. We expect to enroll about 30-40 students from this program, which should take a year and a half to complete.

Q: Your first executive MBA class will graduate this year. Is a second class underway, and how has community response been for the EMBA program?

A: Participants in our first executive MBA class, which started last fall, are in their last three months of coursework. They will graduate in December. We are currently enrolling our second cohort. The word is slowly getting out. Our current class includes senior officers from major companies in our area and their feedback about the program has been extremely positive.

Q: Can you graduate enough people to fill open positions in Acadiana, where the job market is promising? Is the UL business school brand known and respected outside of Acadiana?

A: Our graduates find jobs they want, for the most part. They are not necessarily all located in Acadiana. We need to do a better job of making people aware of the quality of our programs and our graduates. For example, our accounting graduates do very well in the CPA exam. We are ranked 21st in the country among large programs in CPA exam pass rate, and, we are 39th in the country for first-time pass rates on the CPA exam. Our students have earned top awards in national sales competitions around the country. I would like to see large companies recognize that there is a significant talent pool available in Acadiana because of UL Lafayette. We should be able to attract companies from out-of-state to locate here in Acadiana when they learn about our graduates.

Q: Is there a hot area of study right now for the business school? For example, are marketing or accounting graduates especially in demand? What will be the most attractive business major for the long term?

At the undergraduate level, we have the standard suite of options for our business students - accounting, economics, finance, management and marketing. In addition, we have three majors - hospitality management, insurance and risk management, and, professional land and resources management. The last three are uniquely suited to our region. Our land man program, for example, is doing extremely well now, because the energy industry in our area is doing very well. Our largest major is management followed by accounting. At the graduate level, we have the MBA with a health care option, which I expect to grow significantly. The Acadiana region has already begun to see significant growth in the health care industry. Those who are interested in a career in health care will find this degree to be most useful, regardless of their undergraduate degree. We are finding that some banks prefer to hire MBA graduates for their management positions.

Q: Are you considering any new major areas of study within the school, perhaps a blend of business and engineering, or business and the arts?

A: For the immediate future, we will begin offering concentrations in our management major. This is the most flexible and, therefore, versatile of our majors. We will be offering a concentration in Human Resources, starting in spring 2014. We have tremendous support from the Acadiana Society for Human Resource Professionals. Another one has to do with "big data." Companies, as we know, are inundated with data and want talent that can make business-sense of large amounts of data. We are considering the feasibility of an "analytics" concentration, as well. We are somewhat limited in looking at new programs, since resources are limited and university budgets are shrinking with diminishing state support. Hence, we have to be very careful in utilizing scare resources.

Q: Why would you advise high school graduates to study in this business program? What's special about it?

A: First, I would advise any high school student to place a high personal value on "higher" education. It shouldn't just be about earning a degree to get a better paycheck. It should be about being a better person with a better ability to contribute to society - to better the world around us. All our degrees are, therefore, profoundly meaningful in that sense. Everyone ends up "working." You work in an organization. The organization you work in may be in the private sector or in the public sector. It may be for-profit or non-profit. Every organization has a mission or purpose, an operation to produce something toward that mission, people who are employees or volunteers, clients or customers, and a mechanism to fund the operation with the ability to sustain itself for a duration. Whether you acknowledge it or not, every organization is a business. The business degree is not for all, of course. But, with a business degree, you first and foremost get a fundamental and comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of a business. Then, you can choose to specialize in one of the majors that I mentioned earlier. I would recommend high school students to take a business elective in their high school programs and see if they have the aptitude or interest in what they are exposed to.